was nothing, and dispersed to their inquiries. By six they
returned, their zeal a little damped, without news. Widgery came
back with Dangle. Phipps was the last to return. "You're quite
sure," said Widgery, that there isn't any flaw in that inference
of yours?"
"Quite," said Dangle, rather shortly.
"Of course," said Widgery, "their starting from Midhurst on the
Chichester road doesn't
absolutely bind them not to change their
minds."
"My dear fellow!--It does. Really it does. You must allow me to
have enough
intelligence to think of cross-roads. Really you
must. There aren't any cross-roads to tempt them. Would they turn
aside here? No. Would they turn there? Many more things are
inevitable than you fancy."
"We shall see at once," said Widgery, at the window. "Here comes
Phipps. For my own part--"
"Phipps!" said Mrs. Milton. "Is he hurrying? Does he look--" She
rose in her
eagerness,
biting her trembling lip, and went towards
the window.
"No news," said Phipps, entering.
"Ah!" said Widgery.
"None?" said Dangle.
"Well," said Phipps. "One fellow had got hold of a queer story of
a man in bicycling clothes, who was asking the same question
about this time
yesterday."
"What question?" said Mrs. Milton, in the shadow of the window.
She spoke in a low voice, almost a whisper.
"Why--Have you seen a young lady in a grey bicycling
costume?"
Dangle caught at his lower lip. "What's that?" he said.
"Yesterday! A man asking after her then! What can THAT mean?"
"Heaven knows," said Phipps, sitting down
wearily. "You'd better
infer."
"What kind of man?" said Dangle.
"How should I know?--in bicycling
costume, the fellow said."
"But what height?--What complexion?"
"Didn't ask," said Phipps. "DIDN'T ASK! Nonsense," said Dangle.
"Ask him yourself," said Phipps. "He's an ostler chap in the
White Hart,--short, thick-set fellow, with a red face and a
crusty manner. Leaning up against the
stable door. Smells of
whiskey. Go and ask him."
"Of course," said Dangle,
taking his straw hat from the shade
over the stuffed bird on the chiffonier and turning towards the
door. "I might have known."
Phipps' mouth opened and shut.
"You're tired, I'm sure, Mr. Phipps," said the lady, soothingly.
"Let me ring for some tea for you." It suddenly occurred to
Phipps that he had lapsed a little from his
chivalry. "I was a
little annoyed at the way he rushed me to do all this business,"
he said. "But I'd do a hundred times as much if it would bring
you any nearer to her." Pause. "I WOULD like a little tea."
"I don't want to raise any false hopes," said Widgery. "But I do
NOT believe they even came to Chichester. Dangle's a very clever
fellow, of course, but sometimes these Inferences of his--"
"Tchak!" said Phipps, suddenly.
"What is it?" said Mrs. Milton.
"Something I've forgotten. I went right out from here, went to
every other hotel in the place, and never thought--But never
mind. I'll ask when the
waiter comes."
"You don't mean--" A tap, and the door opened. "Tea, m'm? yes,
m'm," said the
waiter.
"One minute," said Phipps. "Was a lady in grey, a cycling lady--"
"Stopped here
yesterday? Yessir. Stopped the night. With her
brother, sir--a young gent."
"Brother!" said Mrs. Milton, in a low tone. "Thank God!"
The
waiter glanced at her and understood everything. "A young
gent, sir," he said, "very free with his money. Give the name of
Beaumont." He proceeded to some rambling particulars, and was
cross-examined by Widgery on the plans of the young couple.
"Havant! Where's Havant?" said Phipps. "I seem to remember it
somewhere."
"Was the man tall?" said Mrs. Milton,
intently, "distinguished
looking? with a long, flaxen moustache? and spoke with a drawl?"
"Well," said the
waiter, and thought. "His moustache, m'm, was
scarcely long--scrubby more, and young looking."
"About thirty-five, he was?"
"No, m'm. More like five and twenty. Not that."
"Dear me!" said Mrs. Milton,
speaking in a curious, hollow voice,
fumbling for her salts, and showing the finest
self-control. "It
must have been her YOUNGER brother--must have been."
"That will do, thank you," said Widgery, officiously, feeling
that she would be easier under this new surprise if the man were
dismissed. The
waiter turned to go, and almost collided with
Dangle, who was entering the room, panting
excitedly and with a
pocket
handkerchief held to his right eye. "Hullo!" said
dangle.
"What's up?"
"What's up with YOU?" said Phipps.
"Nothing--an altercation merely with that
drunken ostler of
yours. He thought it was a plot to annoy him--that the Young Lady
in Grey was mythical. Judged from your manner. I've got a piece
of raw meat to keep over it. You have some news, I see?"
"Did the man hit you?" asked Widgery.
Mrs. Milton rose and approached Dangle. "Cannot I do anything?"
Dangle was
heroic. "Only tell me your news," he said, round the
corner of the
handkerchief.
"It was in this way," said Phipps, and explained rather
sheepishly. While he was doing so, with a
running fire of
commentary from Widgery, the
waiter brought in a tray of tea. "A
time table," said Dangle,
promptly, "for Havant." Mrs. Milton
poured two cups, and Phipps and Dangle partook in passover form.
They caught the train by a hair's
breadth. So to Havant and
inquiries.
Dangle was puffed up to find that his guess of Havant was right.
In view of the fact that beyond Havant the Southampton road has a
steep hill
continuously on the
right-hand side, and the sea on
the left, he hit upon a
magnificentscheme for heading the young
folks off. He and Mrs. Milton would go to Fareham, Widgery and
Phipps should
alight one each at the
intermediate stations of
Cosham and Porchester, and come on by the next train if they had
no news. If they did not come on, a wire to the Fareham post
office was to explain why. It was Napoleonic, and more than
consoled Dangle for the open
derision of the Havant street boys
at the
handkerchief which still protected his damaged eye.
Moreover, the
scheme answered to
perfection. The fugitives
escaped by a hair's
breadth. They were outside the Golden Anchor
at Fareham, and preparing to mount, as Mrs. Milton and Dangle
came round the corner from the station. "It's her!" said Mrs.
Milton, and would have screamed. "Hist!" said Dangle, gripping
the lady's arm, removing his
handkerchief in his
excitement, and
leaving the piece of meat over his eye, an extraordinary
appearance which seemed
unexpectedly to calm her. "Be cool!" said
Dangle, glaring under the meat. "They must not see us. They will
get away else. Were there flys at the station?" The young couple
mounted and vanished round the corner of the Winchester road. Had
it not been for the publicity of the business, Mrs. Milton would
have fainted. "SAVE HER!" she said.
"Ah! A conveyance," said Dangle. "One minute."
He left her in a most
pathetic attitude, with her hand pressed to
her heart, and rushed into the Golden Anchor. Dog cart in ten
minutes. Emerged. The meat had gone now, and one saw the cooling
puffiness over his eye. "I will conduct you back to the station,"
said Dangle; "hurry back here, and
pursue them. You will meet
Widgery and Phipps and tell them I am in pursuit."
She was whirled back to the railway station and left there, on a
hard, blistered,
wooden seat in the sun. She felt tired and
dreadfully ruffled and agitated and dusty. Dangle was, no doubt,
most
energetic and
devoted ; but for a kindly, helpful manner
commend her to Douglas Widgery.
Meanwhile Dangle, his face golden in the evening sun, was driving
(as well as he could) a large, black horse harnessed into a thing
called a gig, northwestward towards Winchester. Dangle, barring
his
swollen eye, was a refined-looking little man, and be wore a
deerstalker cap and was dressed in dark grey. His neck was long
and
slender. Perhaps you know what gigs are, --huge, big,
woodenthings and very high and the horse, too, was huge and big and
high, with knobby legs, a long face, a hard mouth, and a whacking
trick of pacing. Smack, smack, smack, smack it went along the
road, and hard by the church it shied
vigorously at a hooded
perambulator.
The history of the Rescue Expedition now becomes confused. It
appears that Widgery was
extremelyindignant to find Mrs. Milton
left about upon the Fareham
platform. The day had irritated him
somehow, though he had started with the noblest intentions, and
he seemed glad to find an
outlet for justifiable indignation.
"He's such a spasmodic creature," said Widgery. "Rushing off! And
I suppose we're to wait here until he comes back! It's likely.
He's so egotistical, is Dangle. Always wants to mismanage
everything himself."
"He means to help me," said Mrs. Milton, a little reproachfully,
touching his arm. Widgery was hardly in the mood to be mollified
all at once. "He need not prevent ME," he said, and stopped.
"It's no good talking, you know, and you are tired."
"I can go on," she said
brightly, "if only we find her." " While
I was cooling my heels in Cosham I bought a county map." He
produced and opened it. "Here, you see, is the road out of
Fareham." He proceeded with the calm
deliberation of a business
man to develop a proposal of
taking train
forthwith to
Winchester. "They MUST be going to Winchester," he explained. It
was
inevitable. To-morrow Sunday, Winchester a
cathedral town,
road going
nowhere else of the slightest importance,
"But Mr. Dangle?"
"He will simply go on until he has to pass something, and then he
will break his neck. I have seen Dangle drive before. It's
scarcely likely a dog-cart, especially a hired dog-cart, will
overtake bicycles in the cool of the evening. Rely upon me, Mrs.
Milton--"
"I am in your hands," she said, with
pathetic littleness, looking
up at him, and for the moment he forgot the exasperation of the
day.
Phipps, during this conversation, had stood in a somewhat
depressed attitude, leaning on his stick, feeling his
collar, and
looking from one
speaker to the other. The idea of leaving Dangle
behind seemed to him an excellent one. "We might leave a message
at the place where he got the dog-cart," he suggested, when he
saw their eyes meeting. There was a
cheerful alacrity about all
three at the proposal.
But they never got beyond Botley. For even as their train ran
into the station, a
mighty rumbling was heard, there was a
shouting
overhead, the guard stood astonished on the
platform,
and Phipps, thrusting his head out of the window, cried, "There
he goes!" and
sprang out of the
carriage. Mrs. Milton, following
in alarm, just saw it. From Widgery it was
hidden. Botley station
lies in a cutting,
overhead was the
roadway, and across the lemon
yellows and flushed pinks of the
sunset, there whirled a great
black mass, a horse like a long-nosed chess
knight, the upper
works of a gig, and Dangle in
transit from front to back. A
monstrous shadow aped him across the cutting. It was the event of
a second. Dangle seemed to jump, hang in the air momentarily, and
vanish, and after a moment's pause came a heart-rending smash.
Then two black heads
running swiftly.
"Better get out," said Phipps to Mrs. Milton, who stood
fascinated in the
doorway.